Salt to the sea

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Malletts Teen A/V 4-week checkout	Teen BOCD / Fiction / Historical / Sepetys, Ruta	4-week checkout	Due 04-30-2024

Compact discs.
Read by Jorjeana Marie, Will Damron, Cassandra Morris, and Michael Crouch.
The author of the New York Times bestseller Between shades of Gray returns to WWII in this epic novel that shines a light on one of the war's most devastating-yet unknown-tragedies. In 1945, World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia, and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, almost all of them with something to hide. Among them are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage, and trust in each other tested with each step closer toward safety. Just when it seems freedom is within their grasp, tragedy strikes. Not country, nor culture, nor status matter as all ten thousand people aboard must fight for the same thing: survival. Told in alternating points of view, this masterful work of historical fiction is inspired by the real-life tragedy that was the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff--the greatest maritime disaster in history. As she did in Between shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys unearths a shockingly little-known casualty of a gruesome war and proves that humanity can prevail, even in the darkest of hours.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Enjoyed listening submitted by RG Reader on July 11, 2016, 6:30pm I really enjoyed listening to this book on CD, even though I had previously read the paper version when it first came out. I was happy that there are 4 different narrators for the 5 characters in whose voices the story is written, alternating chapters as each tells his/her perspective of the action. It added to their personalities and helped differentiate the characters while listening. This book is by no means just for teens, as it is categorized; adults will certainly enjoy it. I would not recommend it to a younger audience without parental screening as real life can be frightening. This book is based on a true historical event - the largest maritime disaster in history.

Ruta Sepetys is one of my favorite authors and a master of historical fiction, bringing to light important historical events of which much of the world is unaware. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, so let's learn our history, especially that of the recent 20th century!

Maritime submitted by KSB2013 on July 7, 2017, 12:47pm Good for driving.

Salty submitted by i'm a blobfish on June 15, 2019, 11:42am A dark tale following a group escaping there home to a better place. They are unwanted people and Stalin wants them gone. These people group together to fight their way out. The story shifts between individual characters. I really like this book, but it's pretty sad. If you read it and you enjoyed it, I recommend you read "Between Shades of Gray".

powerful submitted by camelsamba on July 13, 2019, 9:33pm The audiobook is read by multiple readers. Each of the readers was very expressive and conveyed emotion appropriate to the setting.

Drawback of audiobook: I could tell that some of the chapters had parallel constructions, and it would have been more satisfying to quickly flip back and forth between pages to compare them. Likewise some chapters near the end seemed to parallel or tie back to the earliest chapters, and I wanted to compare those.

I listened to this twice in a row. While it was obvious something was off with Alfred from relatively early, his parts were especially eerie/creepy the second time through.